John Ansell has coming out in support of Martin Doutré, an amatuer researcher I’ve written about in earlier posts, and it’s quite the endorsement:

Over the past year, I’ve read a lot of Martin’s writing.

I’ve prodded and poked at him on a few occasions when some explanation didn’t quite gel. And yet he’s always come up trumps. I’ve never failed to be impressed by the depth and breadth and robustness of his knowledge.

I’m very happy to stand with Martin, just as I was once proud to stand with Roger Douglas.

and:

By the time this campaign is over, I intend the name of Martin Doutre to be well-known to his countrymen, and for all the right reasons.

I have not read Martin’s book about Celtic New Zealand, but I was very impressed with his book on the Littlewood Treaty.

So, Ansell is willing to endorse Doutré and his work on a possible pre-Māori people without having actually read the book.

I wonder what Ansell would think of it if he did. I mean, to Ansell’s credit, he has read Max Hill’s “To the Ends of the Earth” (my thoughts on that book here and found it wanting:

For the record, I have seen evidence of pre-Maori that seems plausible, but I’ve also seen a recent book about Egyptians colonising New Zealand that I found totally implausible.

…

The book had some rather dubious photographs purporting to show New Zealand on an ancient map, but the blob in question could have been anything west of Fiji or east of the Philippines.

…

I should say that this book had nothing to do with Martin Doutre.

Whilst it’s true that Doutré is not responsible for this book, one of Doutré’s fellow researchers, Gary Cook, is. Cook wrote several of the chapters in “To the Ends of the Earth” and given Cook and Doutré’s association, I would be surprised if Doutré is, at the very least, somewhat supportive of Hill’s work (this is supposition on my part, I do admit).

Given the criticisms of Ansell’s support of the pre-Māori, Celtic New Zealand thesis, Ansell got in contact with Doutré and asked for his opinion on what we “Marxists” were saying. Doutré’s reply is interesting.

Firstly, he seems to blame those of us who criticise him for coining the term “Celtic New Zealand thesis” for coming up with the notion of “Celtic New Zealand” because even though Doutré called his book “Celtic New Zealand,” it’s out fault for using that term to describe his thesis:

This whole off-centre focus on “Celtic” is a typical Marxist distraction or red-herring to draw focus away from what is so copiously stated in our history books (recorded oral traditions) and, instead, get people looking sideways at “obviously demented” individuals like Martin Doutré with his “crack-pot” theories about actual “Celts” roaming around New Zealand.

Yes, it’s our fault to take him at his word and think he referred to Celts when talking about a Celtic people living in Aotearoa me Te Wai Pounamu.

About Matthew Dentith

952 articles and counting.

Author of "The Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories" (Palgrave Macmillan), Matthew Dentith wrote his PhD on epistemic issues surrounding belief in conspiracy theories. He is a frequent media commentator on the weird and the wonderful, both locally and internationally. On occasion he can be caught dreaming about wax lions but, mostly, it is rumoured he works for elements of the New World Order.

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4 comments:

Doutre, Hilliam and others of the like have a strongly political perspective running all through their work that Maori peoples have no valid treaty claims because Maori were not the first etc. In addition much of their comment about ancient Maori peoples can only be described as derogatory.

Cook does not have this political orientation at all to my knowledge. I have read a few of his books and this kind of stuff is not present and I do not think he has this perspective at all.

Hill is new to me and I have not read any of his work. I would be interested to know if Hill’s work contains any examples of the same political orientation as Doutre and Hilliam.

Chapter 16 of “To the Ends of the Earth” was written by Cook and is on how Maui and Rata were Egyptian/Greek navigators, whilst chapter 55 is on pre-Māori carvings in Aotearoa me Te Wai Pounamu and makes reference to the notion of a pre-Māori Waitaha people (not to be confused by the hapu of Ngāi Tahu by that name).

Hill, in “To the Ends of the Earth” makes reference to the Littlewood draft of Tiriti O Waitangi as if the Littlewood draft is the actual treaty (“4th February 1840 Governor Hobson signed the Littlewood Treaty, giving protection to all inward coming British citizens to New Zealand. – p. 324) and as I noted here, Hill said this to the editor of the Franklin eLocal:

What Max wants from his book is for European Kiwis to real­ise they may deserve to be recog­nised as tangata whenua. “I’m tired of being told we’re vis­it­ors to our own land,” he tells me.

Which does suggest he has a political agenda in play. Given that Hilliam and Cook are the co-editors of “To the Ends of the Earth,” we can assume that they, if not outrightly supporting this agenda, are at least sympathetic towards it.

Yes, now I recall reading the article in Franklin eLocal. Yes, overall impression of that I would tend to put Hill in much the same category as Doutre and Hilliam whose views are well known. I have not yet reread the the Hill article to check that impression.

Cook I have heard speak at public talks. He states at the beginning that nothing that he presents in his talks or books and research is intended to challenge Maori as tangatawhenua and that he has absolutely nothing against the treaty. I do not think this is disingenuous verbal maneuver on his part. He seems genuine on this.